Friday, January 28, 2005
Borders, Priorities Blur Along the 'Wild Frontier'
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&u=/latimests/20050123/ts_latimes/bordersprioritiesbluralongthewildfrontier&printer=1
January 23, 2005
Border agents say they have run into heavily armed Mexican soldiers inside the U.S.
New Mexico arrested 48,633 illegal immigrants; in 2004 the number rose to 61,374. The Deming station saw apprehensions jump 26% last year, while the Lordsburg sector 60 miles west had a 109% increase. Border checkpoints like the one at Antelope Wells in far southwest New Mexico once averaged a single drug seizure a year. In 2004, it had seven. This month, border agents found 4,400 pounds of marijuana inside a pickup truck.
New Mexico has 425 agents to patrol 14,000 square miles. Much of the border is unmarked and open — no fences, boundary lines or roads to show which side is which.
The Southwest New Mexico Border Security Task Force, a group of New Mexico and federal law enforcement agencies, issued a report in 2003 saying it didn't have the resources to adequately protect against drug dealers, illegal immigrants and "potentially weapons of mass destruction" crossing the border.
January 23, 2005
Border agents say they have run into heavily armed Mexican soldiers inside the U.S.
New Mexico arrested 48,633 illegal immigrants; in 2004 the number rose to 61,374. The Deming station saw apprehensions jump 26% last year, while the Lordsburg sector 60 miles west had a 109% increase. Border checkpoints like the one at Antelope Wells in far southwest New Mexico once averaged a single drug seizure a year. In 2004, it had seven. This month, border agents found 4,400 pounds of marijuana inside a pickup truck.
New Mexico has 425 agents to patrol 14,000 square miles. Much of the border is unmarked and open — no fences, boundary lines or roads to show which side is which.
The Southwest New Mexico Border Security Task Force, a group of New Mexico and federal law enforcement agencies, issued a report in 2003 saying it didn't have the resources to adequately protect against drug dealers, illegal immigrants and "potentially weapons of mass destruction" crossing the border.
